Japan victim's father calls 'Jihadi John' death karma, not closure

MAKUHARI, Japan, Nov 14 (Reuters) - The apparent death of
"Jihadi John," the public face of the self-styled Islamic State,
may represent a kind of karma but it doesn't bring closure for
the father of one Japanese hostage beheaded nearly a year ago.

"It's not to say that it was heaven's punishment doing its
work, but what you do to other people will come back to you,"
Shoichi Yukawa said on Saturday of the U.S. announcement that it
was "reasonably certain" its had killed Kuwaiti-born Briton
Mohammed Emwazi, described as the group's "lead executioner."

Yukawa, 75, speaking to Reuters in his home an hour east of
Tokyo, chose his words as he reflected on the killing of the
killer of his son, Haruna, apparently beheaded in January after
several months in the hands of IS in Syria.

"I'm not happy that he (Jihadi John) was attacked, but I
know that the Syrian civil war is a horrible thing and I want it
to end as soon as possible," the father said quietly.

"Of course I have hatred towards the murderers, but more
than that I want the war to end."

Yukawa was speaking just hours after IS supporters said the
group was responsible for Friday's series of attacks in Paris,
which killed at least 127 people and prompted France to declare
a state of emergency.

News on Friday that Emwazi had apparently been blown up in a
U.S. and British drone strike in the Syrian town of Raqqa
brought relief mingled with fresh anguish to the loved ones of
others he claimed to have killed.

The capture and apparent beheadings in late 2014 and early
2015 of Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto, a freelance journalist
friend who went into Syria in an attempt to save him, transfixed
Japan, a country largely spared from militant attacks and the
horrors now spilling out of Syria.

Emwazi appeared in videos with Yukawa and Goto, who were
kneeling and in orange smocks, and in the final videos, a week
apart, announcing their apparent executions. Each victim's body
lay on the ground, its severed head placed on its back.

A picture of the two in happier days adorn the wide-screen
TV in the living room of Shoichi Yukawa's tidy, two-storey
tatami-matted home. A framed picture of Haruna stands on a
Buddhist altar, near the phone that Shoichi and his wife have
left disconnected since their son's abduction caused a media
maelstrom.

Haruna burst onto the public stage in a video of his capture
and apparent beating by militants, who appeared to take the
armed Japanese man, in black T-shirt and fatigues, as a
mercenary.

In fact, according to Haruna's online journal and his
father's comments to Reuters at the time, the young man went to
Aleppo on a soul-searching journey. He had recently lost his
wife to cancer, lost his business, changed his name to the
feminine-sounding Haruna, tried to kill himself by cutting off
his genitals and come to believe he was the reincarnation of a
cross-dressing Manchu princess who had spied for Japan in World
War Two.

Shoichi Yukawa, sitting on the floor at a low Japanese table
and dressed in a thick sweater, appears calmer now and with a
healthier complexion than during his ordeal. He even smiles when
he begins speaking about current events.

But he becomes subdued as he begins reading a May entry in
his handwritten diary, which expresses a very Japanese sense of
shame for creating a public nuisance.

"As the father of my son who has caused such a public
commotion, I deeply feel a sense of moral responsibility," he
reads, wiping away the occasional tear welling up behind his
wide-framed glasses.

"I sincerely want to thank everyone, starting from those in
the government, who have done their best to help."

Foreign Ministry officials dropped off Haruna's duffle bag
in March, two months after his execution. It took the father two
more months to open it, finding his son's clothes, passport,
toiletries and notebook.

Shoichi put the belongings in cardboard boxes in the small
room where Haruna's other things are stored.

"This whole incident - it's not over for me," the father
said as he looked at the boxes.
(Reporting by Teppei Kasai; Editing by William Mallard)